Hand-held spray pumps are manufactured by the millions and are mainly used to dispense products such as household cleaners. These pumps have tended in the past to be rather complex in configuration and having numerous complex parts. In addition, hand-held spray pumps require assembly of these rather complex parts which can be in and of itself complex. Since manufacturing expense is frequently associated with product complexity it is desirable to reduce complexity if possible.
In marketing and utilizing hand pumps, it is from time to time desirable to change various aspects of the pump housing. Since changes in the configuration of the housing may well require chances in the orientation and thus the operation of the pump mechanism, this can be an expensive undertaking if the pump mechanism is integral with the pump housing. Since the configuration of the usual pump mechanism does not necessarily depend on the liquid being pumped or the purpose for which pumped liquid is employed, the same fundamental pump mechanism may be used for many liquids. In order to accommodate the mode in which liquid is dispensed from the pump mechanism, it is necessary to only reconfigure the nozzle through which the liquid is ultimately dispensed and perhaps the design of structure just upstream of the nozzle.
Hand-held spray pumps are now almost universally fabricated from resin materials which are becoming increasingly expensive. Accordingly, it is desirable to configure pump structure with minimal amounts of resinous material.
While the prior art includes a number of approaches for reducing the number of parts in hand-held spray pumps as well as several spray pumps in which an attempt is made to separate the structure of the pump mechanism from that of the housing and even that of the trigger, the prior art does not include hand-held spray pumps to minimize expense while maximizing convenience through addressing each of the above-identified concerns.